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Happy New Year Everyone!

Stephanie Gulley — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 07:14:50 +0000

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to a prosperous new year – be safe and stay warm!

Ad 2 National Mid Year Retreat 2009

Ad 2 National Mid Year Retreat 2009

Stephanie Gulley — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:50:01 +0000

Earlier this month, Ad 2 San Diego hosted the Ad 2 National Mid-Year Retreat at The Dana on Mission Bay. The event had over 40 Ad 2 members from chapters all over the US which was a great experience for a new member such as myself.

As the Social Media chair on the Communications Committee for Ad2SD, I was eager to meet other Ad 2 members that shared my position to exchange ideas on two specific areas: (1) how we could better promote our Ad 2 events and (2) encourage other professionals in our areas to join our events.

During our break out session, I learned that other chapters were taking advantage of Facebook and Twitter to promote their events like us. However, I was suprised to learn that other chapter didn’t promote events on their site as often as we did (i.e. Event Announcement, Event Summary, Photos, etc.) but after sharing our success stories with other members, I’m confident that that will change in the future.

Below are a few key take aways that I learned from the other Social Media chairs:

1. Leverage your Ad 2 newsletters and forward them to interested co-workers.

2. Edit your Facebook invites to invite members and fans that are local.

3. Twitter can help find local sponsors for your Ad 2 events (i.e. happy hours at bard, printing needs, etc.).

4. Stream events online if possible and post on video sites such as Ustream.tv, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

The key take aways listed above are definitely actions items that the Communications committee are going to roll out this year. Aside from learning new best practices for social media, I started realize that Ad 2 isn’t just for folks involved in online marketing — it’s for young professionals that are passionate about all avenues of advertising (i.e. print, television, online, etc.). Overall, mid year retreat was a great experience and I’m definitely looking forward to attending next year’s mid year retreat.

Before I head out, check out the Ustream video highlighting our Toga Catwalk.

Social Media Breakfast San Diego Recap

Stephanie Gulley — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:23:35 +0000

Getting involved in the social media scene in San Diego is easy and fun thanks to Social Media Breakfast San Diego (SMBSD). The group meets once a month at the Milano Coffee in Mission Valley to network and collaborate with other social media enthusiasts and to share their experiences in recent social media initiatives.

This month we got up close and personal with the social media team from Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. otherwise known as Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes. Erika DiProfio and Ginger Anderson are the masterminds behind the company’s social media strategy and shared with us how Garden Fresh utilized social media and how their fully integrated approach has proven to be successful.

Below is the presentation from the event. You can also check out the Ustream video to the right. I suggest fast forwarding the video 16 minutes because that’s when the actual Souplantation discussion begins.

Key Take Aways

Erika & Ginger are responsible day to day execution of Souplantation’s social media strategy.
Social media was not viewed as a single campaign but a way to integrate everything they do for promotions.
1. Use social media to capture customer feedback and drive marketing initiatives.
Their goals were to open the lines of communication and to increase brand loyalty.
UGC contest on Facebook has included: Best Pucker Face & Best Salad Face.
The company has over 5K employees. Downward communication has been vital to their success to date.
Over 1.1MM Club Veg Members to date.
CEO has supported the team’s social media initiatives.

[Image Source: DiscoverSD]

[Video Source: SMBSD]

Ad 2 San Diego Cause Marketing Night Recap

Stephanie Gulley — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:54:25 +0000

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the Ad 2 San Diego (Ad2SD) Cause Marketing Night at the stunning NTC Promenade. Each year, Ad2SD donates a complete advertising campaign to one non-profit organization in the San Diego area. The advertising campaign includes television, radio, print, outdoor and interactive advertising elements depending on the client’s goals and objectives. Other campaigns have also included a logo design, production of collateral materials, and public relations initiatives. With the help of committed Ad2SD members, Ad2SD designs and produces the campaign for the non-profit organization with little to no cost at all.

This year, three non-profit organizations competed for the coveted Ad2SD Public Service campaign which included the Challenged Athletes Foundation, California for Sustainable Energy, and Make a Wish Foundation. Each non-profit was given 10 minutes to present what the goal and objectives were for their organization and how they would be able to benefit from the public service campaign. For a full recap on event, check our Marco Barron’s summary here.

After the presentation and Q&A session, Ad2SD presented Christine Guardia, the Cause Cultivator of KooDooZ. Guardia discussed how partnerships are the fifth “P” in a marketing mix. Below is the presentation that she prepared that night.

View more presentations from Christine Guardia.

For more information on Cause Marketing, be sure to follow Guardia on Twitter @Cause4Kdz. As for the winner of this year’s Ad 2 San Diego Public Service campaign, be sure to check out the Ad2SD site. They should be announcing the winner soon!

[Image source: NTC Promenade]

Updated Publications Page

Stephanie Gulley — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:16:16 +0000

Inspired by Danny Brown’s 12for12k.org media page, I realized that my publications page had become dull and boring with barely any images and lots of text, text, and more text — it was definitely time for an upgrade. My goal was to create an interactive space that featured video tutorials I uploaded to Viddler and SlideShare presentations. Using Danny’s media page as my inspiration, I was able to organize my multimedia projects into a clean table with thumbnail images. So please check out my new Publications page and let me know what you think.

If you’ve created your own multimedia page in your blog, please feel free to share the link.

Highlighters Are Now Digital

Ad 2 San Diego presents Cause Marketing Night

Stephanie Gulley — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:21:53 +0000

If you’re a marketing professional under the age of 32 and looking for a professional organization where you can network with other members of the advertising, marketing, and communications field – you should check out your local Ad 2 chapter. And if you’re in San Diego, you should definitely check out Ad 2 San Diego (Ad2SD). Why you ask? Because Ad 2 is a great organization that helps create future advertising and marketing industry leaders through education, leadership development and networking programs.

Just recently, Ad2SD hosted the “Start Up or Shut Up” event where attendees got to get up close and personal with a panel of San Diego’s finest agency execs to learn what it takes to bring a start up to a reality.

The panel included:

Chuck Longanecker: Founder and CEO of digital-telepathy
Micha Mikailian: CEO of eBoost Consulting
Craig Macdonald: Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Covario

Over 50 attendees attended the event (myself included) and were able to gain an intimate perspective on the pros and cons of running a new business such as how to hire the right team, when to accept investment capital, how to negotiate rates, and more. Overall, it was a great night with a huge turnout and I’m definitely excited for this month’s event.

On August 27, 2009 at 6PM, Ad2SD will be hosting their annual “Cause Marketing Night” where three non-profit organizations will get a chance to compete for the coveted Ad 2 Public Service Campaign.

According to Ad2SD, “Each year local chapters select a client, research the client’s needs and author a complete marketing plan. Then, based upon that information, AD 2 members create television, radio, print outdoor and interactive advertising elements. Some campaigns also include logo design, production of collateral materials and public relations initiatives.”

Each non-profit will be given 10 minutes to present to a panel of judges on why they deserve the campaign and after the presentations, the guest speaker (TBA) will share a presentation on Cause Marketing. Check out the TV spot that was created last year for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Diego County on the right panel. Awesome work don’t you think?

If you’re a non-profit in San Diego and want to compete for the coveted public service campaign, download your application here. If you’re interested in attending the event, you can register for the event now! Ad2 members get in for $10. Special discounts are also available for Students, Ad Club members, and YNPN members. To learn more about the event and the pricing details, go to Ad 2 SD Cause Marketing Night.

Hope to see you there!

[Image & Video Source: Ad 2 SD]

SD Comic-Con 2009: Free WiFi and iPhone App

Stephanie Gulley — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:19:09 +0000

San Diego weather and Comic-Con 2009 — enough said. This year marks the 40th Anniversary and looks to be the biggest and best convention ever! With free WiFi available in all areas of the convention center except the Exhibit Hall courtesy of iGoogle, updating my status and sharing photos on Twitter and Facebook is going to be a piece of cake.

On top of that, there’s an official Comic-Con app available for the iPhone and iPod Touch that provides access to the latest news, programs, exhibitors, special guest appearances, and my favorite feature…maps!

I’ll be heading out shortly to Comic-Con so stay tuned for more updates and pics with folks that dress up. I didn’t forget about Dexter from last year that came to the Con dressed up as MySpace, I can’t wait to see what his costume is this year.

Have You Binged Today?

Stephanie Gulley — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:07:46 +0000

Microsoft’s new decision engine, Bing™, aims to help users make better and informed decisions by focusing on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.^[1] The decision engine is expected to roll out over the next few days and fully deploy worldwide on Wednesday, June 3, 2009. As of today, you can access Bing in it’s ‘preview’ mode and take it for a spin – and that’s exactly what I did.

The Bing interface is clean and boasts new features such as categorized search and web groups which makes it easy to navigate. For example, in a search for mobile phones, Bing provided categories at the top left of the page (also known as the Explore Pane) for mobile brands, a buying guide, service providers etc. Once you click on a search category and hover over a listing, you’ll see a a short excerpt from that page. This quick preview can help you decide if that’s the right landing page that you’re looking for. Bing offers other features such as Related Searches, Search History, and Best Matches.

I’ll be trying Bing out for the rest of the week and see what other features will be rolled out by June 3, 2009. How about you? What are your thoughts on Microsoft’s new decision engine?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/may09/05-28NewSearchPR.mspx

Lose Weight With Web 2.0

New Google Profile Cards Arrived

Stephanie Gulley — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:34:04 +0000

Earlier this month Google launched their profile pages and partnered with iPrint.com to offer free Google Profile business cards to the first 10,000 people to claim them. The promotion included 25 cards that feature the Google.com home page with your name in the search box and the address for your Google profile printed in green.

With a Google profile you can help people find the right information when they search for you on Google. You can check out my Google profile here. There’s still a lot of work to be done in the photo and bio section but I’m happy so far with the progress.

Thanks to Google and iPrint for the awesome promotion, I can’t wait to hand these out at Interactive Day San Diego next month on June 18, 2009. Discounts are also available for Ad2 members and students. You can register for the event here.

If you’ve already created your Google profile, feel free to post a link in the comments. I’m looking for some inspiration.

Meet Danny Brown & The 12for12K Challenge

Stephanie Gulley — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:02:48 +0000

If you thought corporate brands were the only ones diving into the world of social media, you’re wrong. Non-profits are leveraging the social media landscape as well to optimize their communication efforts, raise funds and maximize awareness for their cause.

In fact, if you’re active within the Twitter community, you may have seen several of your followers with a 12for12k Challenge border surrounding their avatar. The 12for12k Challenge is the combination of social media and fund-raising.

The concept is simple:

12 months of the year
12 charities, a different charity each month
$12,000 per charity

To learn more about the 12for12k Challenge, I reached out to founder, Danny Brown, for an informal interview.

1. Tell us about the concept behind “The 12for12K Challenge” (i.e. how you came up with the idea, what prompted you, etc.).

The idea was simply to try and help as many good causes as possible in 2009. For anyone that visits my blog, they’ll see a list of charities I support. I wanted to take this further and help organizations that are great causes but may be suffering from either awareness, support or funds.

The prompt was from reading newspapers and speaking to non-profit friends, about how traditional fund-raising is being hit hard by both the economy and the cost of getting your cause into the open. It’s clear that social media can offer solutions to both these issues, and that’s when the idea started taking shape.

2. How did you (or supporters) spread the word about 12for12K?

We’ve used a variety of tools and mediums to raise awareness for what we’re trying to achieve, and the charities themselves. Twitter has been hugely effective for us, particularly with the use of the 12for12k Twitter avatar. This leads to people questioning Twitter users sporting the avatar what 12for12k is all about, and that leads to conversation. Which is still the best way to promote anything.

We also have a 12for12k Facebook group, the main 12for12k site with blog, the 12for12k promo video, and we’ve recently set up a blogger program for bloggers to get directly involved with 12for12k.

We’ve also held fun events like a Tweetathon, a virtual pajama party and live tweetups, and this month we’re looking at holding a virtual 12for12k karaoke – more details on that soon!

3. What charities have 12for12K supported and what was the outcome (i.e. hit target donation $12K, maximized awareness surrounding the cause, etc.)?

January was WarChild; February was Stop the Silence; March was Share Our Strength; April was Yehu.org; and this month is Hospice of Peel. As far as donations go, we have only broke the $12,000 barrier once (for the March charity) while the others we have raised on average around $5,000.

Obviously we’d love to hit the $12,000 and we will continue to look into ways to make this happen, but I think we’re hugely happy at the support we’re receiving so far. Plus, it’s been a matter of raising awareness about 12for12k, and I feel we’re reaching that now. We have a huge announcement to make for June and November should also be an exciting time as we combine with a great organization.

I know the charities we’ve supported so far have experienced a lot of new people visiting their sites and wanting to find out more, following our partnership. That’s all we ever wished for, so on that front, I think we can be really pleased.

4. Tell us about this month’s 12for12K charity project Hospice of Peel (i.e. how was the charity chosen).

The Hospice of Peel charity is a perfect example of the way the whole 12for12k thing works. We’ve never wanted to be in the mindset of, “Here are our 12 charities – give us your money!”. Instead, we want to involve our supporters as much as possible. So we ask for recommendations of charities we could possibly support.

This is what happened with this month’s charity. Daniel Patricio is a young guy in Toronto doing some amazing things through social media, and is an active supporter and volunteer for the hospice. We’re already connected on Twitter, and Daniel asked us if we could look at Hospice of Peel. It seemed a perfect fit for our ethos, and they do amazing work, so it made it an easy organization to support.

5. How can our readers help support “The 12for12K Challenge”?

There are a number of ways. Obviously the first is by donating to each month’s chosen charity – you can find out about Hospice of Peel and how to donate here.

We know times are tough, so if you can’t afford to donate, but you still wish to support and have a blog, you can use our blog badges to display on your blog. These link directly to 12for12k and help raise more awareness.

And, of course, just let your friends, family and colleagues know about us and what we’re trying to do. The more we can make people aware, the more we can help a given month’s charity.

6. How can non-profits get involved?

First, make sure you meet our criteria. We want to make sure we help each charity as much as possible, so we have four guidelines:

No more than 10% admin cost
Accounts must be available to public on request
Need to have a plan for sustainable change in place, and not just offer a quick-fix solution through donations
Need to accept Paypal

If that’s you, then we’d love to consider you. Just email charities@12for12k.org and let us know a bit about you, and we’ll definitely look.

More About Danny Brown
Danny Brown provides business branding and social media consultancy services to the consumer and commercial markets, from small start-ups to Fortune 500 businesses.